Ace Combat: New Horizons
by TatsuiChiyo
Summary: Found guilty of assassinating a former President, pilot Markus Richthofen is chosen to be the pilot of an experimental super plane and placed in a squadron of criminals sent on suicide missions. So begins the story of the ace pilot who would soon become the ace of aces of the Lighthouse War, and the many people who would interact with the hero with a checkered past.


**OAF HQ, Oured, Osea**

"_...and tragically ends the life of former president Vincent Harling."_ The anchor's voice echoed from the television set. "_Though there has been no official confirmation as of yet, sources within the Osean Air Forces claim the former President was shot down by the very pilots tasked with escorting-"_ The voice was cut off as the television went dark.

"I want these so called "sources" found now!" A man yelled at an attendant before turning to the rest of the men and women sat at the table. "Damn it Marren, probably one of the most important operations in this damned war and your flyboys fubar the whole thing!"

The man being yelled at cleared his throat. "Don't go blaming this whole thing on me Kurt, you read the report and listened to the logs same as me. Harling himself turned the transport around."

"And so the pilot in question was in the right for murdering a war hero?" A woman asked with a raised eyebrow.

Marren scoffed. "So that's what were calling it Rebekah? Cause from what I saw, the whole affair was a tragic accident. Shall we all watch it again?"

Without waiting for an answer Marren typed in a command on his personal computer, linking it up with the screen to show the view feed recorder from the F-16 flown by the pilot tagged as Mage-2.

"_Mage-2, clear out those drones harassing Mother Goose One!"_

The table watched as the pilot of the F-16 impressively took down several of the small Erusean drones, utilizing both machine gun fire and missiles to take down three drones within mere moments. But within seconds the drones were replaced, firing upon the transport that was flying full speed towards the space elevator. They listened as several voices overlapped each other, each one yelling at Mage-2 to destroy the hostile drones. They than watched as Mage-2 fired a missile at a drone, only for the drone to roll out of the way at the last second, allowing the missile to slam into the transport, rupturing the hull and destroying the former president.

_"Oh my God...Mother Goose One is down!_"

_"Was it the enemy!?"_

_"No, I saw it! Friendly fire. Mage-2 shot down the President!"_

Without further word Marren turned off the TV. "See? You all saw it. That could have happened to any of those pilots."

Kurt scoffed. "Yes, how could this pilot have known firing lethal ordinance near his VIP could have resulted in him potentially killing his VIP. Oh wait, not potentially, it did! I mean, just who is this "Mage-2" anyways?" Kurt asked the man next to him.

The man looked down at his tablet. "Mage-2, callsign Trigger, real name Markus Richthofen. Twenty-four years old, he graduated from his flight academy at the top of his class. He was assigned to the Mage Squadron where reports say he performed beyond expectations for a newer pilot, shooting down several target aircraft on his own. Reports do say however he had a habit of of rash and reckless stunts, repeatedly breaking off from the rest of his squadron and assaulting enemy forces alone. It was these actions that earned him his nickname of "Trigger".

"Richthofen?" Kurt asked. "You mean this pilot was Erusean Sanders?"

Sanders shook his head. "Fourth generation Osean. His great-grandfather, Manfred Richthofen, immigrated from one of the former nations absorbed into Erusea." Sanders peered into his tablet. "Silesia? Apparently he was a baron in the nation and a pilot in his own right, having been nicknamed "Red". The family fled after the nation was absorbed into Erusea and ended up in Osea."

Kurt looked down at his tablet, reading through more of Markus's profile. "And his family has quite the history of military service. His grandfather served as an MP, and his father as a tank commander in the Circum-Pacific War."

"What of his family by the way?" Rebekah asked.

Sanders raised an eyebrow. "All dead. Markus was an only child, and both his parents died in a car accident years ago."

Rebekah nodded, a small smirk making it's way to her face, causing Kurt to narrow his eyes at the woman. "I know that look Rebekah." Kurt said. "What are you thinking?"

"We may have an opportunity here." Rebekah asked before turning to Sanders. "Sanders, what is to be done with Richthofen?"

"Report says he'll be sent to a military prison in western Osea." Sanders said.

"Do you have something else in mind Rebekah?" Marren asked.

Rebekah looked down at her computer. "One moment. I believe we may have an opportunity here."

Within moments an image of a strange aircraft's design filled the screen, it's name being the ADF-11F "Raven". The design showed a sleek plane, utilizing angular rear-facing wings and thrust-vector engines on the back. Also, rather than a typical cockpit, the schematic showed several high-spec cameras positioned all around where the cockpit would be.

"Rebekah, what are we looking at here?" Marren asked.

"The ADF-11F prototype, code-named "Raven"." Rebekah explained. "You are looking at the most state of the art plane design we currently have. Designed to fill a variety of combat roles, the Raven can be used to dogfight, surface bombing, stealth recon, surveillance and more. The Raven comes equipped with an experimental AI developed to correct human pilots in flight and weapon use."

"Flight and weapon use?" Kurt asked.

"The Raven comes equipped with a prototype pulse laser cannon in lieu of a machine gun. Since this means the Raven carries less ammunition, the AI helps correct aim and even plot shot paths to better hit moving targets." Rebekah explained "It can also adjust flight path to prevent collision and grazing, allowing pilots to perform more dangerous maneuvers with a reduced chance of a crash." Clearing her throat, she continued her explanation. "The Raven comes equipped with the standard missile attachments, and for it's special weapon attachment it comes with two mini UAV fighters, both equipped with mini-pulse lasers that once locked on to a target can be used to assist in destroying the enemy target, or harass said target while the pilot focuses on other targets."

"So it's a super-plane." Kurt said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm still not seeing what this has to do with Richthofen."

"I was getting to that." Rebekah said before pulling up a map of a base. "Gentleman, this is the 444th Air Base, stationed in south-east Usea. A penal colony, commanded by colonel D. McKinsey. The 444th is currently being used as a decoy base to draw Erusean attention away from actual military bases. Better wooden planes and empty boxes be destroyed than anything useful. Colonel McKinsey even had the bright idea to use prisoners as decoy pilots, having them fly outdated planes with locked firing systems to make the charade seem more legitimate. Command is wanting to expand on this idea and use this "Spare Squadron" to probe Erusean defenses as well as engage in high risk operations."

"In more simple terms," Sanders explained. "Send these prisoners on suicide missions. If they succeed, Erusea is dealt some damage and we gain valuable intel. If they all fail and die, less mouths Usea has to feed and the only loss are outdated planes that had been mothballed years ago anyways."

"Gentleman, I propose we attach Richthofen to Spare Squadron, and give him control over the Raven." Rebekah said with a smile.

Marren raised an eyebrow. "You want to give a man being convicted of assassination and treason the most state of the art plane Usea possesses, and attach him to a suicide squadron?"

"Make no mistake, the Raven is impressive, but it has one serious "design flaw"." Rebekah explained. "As you can see, the Raven is missing the standard cockpit of every other fighter jet. Instead, camera sensors attached to the plane feed information to the pilot to help create a live image feed for the pilot, improved with assistance by the internal AI to identify key targets. The system is also hyper sensitive, able to react to a pilot's movements almost ninety percent more efficiently than any other plane. This system is named the Connection For Flight Interface, or COFFIN for short. The flaw in this system however is that for it to be the most efficient, certain...sacrifices have to be made."

"Sacrifices?" Kurt asked.

"The Raven does not come equipped with any ejection system. If the plane is shot down, the pilot is trapped inside." Rebekah said. "The COFFIN system turns the pilots plane into a literal coffin."

"Which is why the Raven is not being produced." Sanders stated. "The idea is that we can eventually inject AI into the plane so as not to endanger human life, but current AI development has not reached a stage where it is fully feasible to do such a thing."

"But if we were to put in a pilot who no one cared about inside, we could test the Raven's capabilities further." Rebekah stated. "And with his short but impressive piloting record, Richthofen could make a formidable pilot."

"And what happens if Richthofen gets shot down?" Kurt asked. "Your precious Raven is gone, along with what I'm sure is a considerable investment of resources."

"The Raven has been in development for a few years now." Sanders stated. "At this point there are only so many simulations we can run in it. It needs some field tests. There is also one other feature of the Hawk yet to be mentioned, and that is the plane's personal connection to the satellite communications system. It can continuously transmit it's operational data back here to us, so we'll miss nothing."

"And what if Richthofen decides to desert with the super-plane?" Marren asked. "I don't think Usea is his favorite place at the moment."

Rebekah tapped on her keyboard, causing an internal image of the Raven to show. A second later a cylindrical object was highlighted, a string of data revealing the object to be an explosive device. "A bomb was planted in the prototype early into it's production to protect it from theft. The bomb's activation code can be handed over to McKinsey, and if Richthofen decides he wants to cut and run he won't get very far."

Marren leaned back in his chair, giving Kurt a quizzical look. Kurt only narrowed his eyes at Rebekah and Sanders. "You seem to have this all figured out Rebekah."

Rebekah gave a cold smile. "Providence smiles upon us gentleman. This war is already showing that drones and AI is the future, and even if we don't want to admit it, Erusea has the jump on us. Obviously the next step is a merger of the two, human and AI working together."

Marren rubbed his chin. "We have been looking for a way to probe the Erusean defense network. And you said the Raven can transmit it's operational data instantaneously?"

Sanders nodded. "Within seconds. You can even watch the operational feed in real time if you so choose."

Kurt blanched at Marren. "You can't be serious here Marren. Even if Richthofen is a murderer, he's still a human being. and what about the rest of this so called "Spare" squadron? Sending them to certain death is-"

"War Kurt." Rebekah stated. "As we speak, a soldier is laying on the ground with his guts spilled on the ground. A fighter pilot's burning remains are falling to the ground while a sailor's corpse is feeding some fish in the ocean. Men and woman are dying every day in this war Kurt, sent by us at Command to take a city, a base, a hill. What makes sending a few prisoners so much worse? At least they'd be doing Osea some good."

"Rebekah makes a point Kurt." Marren stated. "I'd much rather send a bunch of thieves, anarchists, con men, and a murderer to die than good pilots."

Kurt pursed his lips before sighing. "God help us. Fine, use Richthofen as a guinea pig."

Rebekah leaned back in her chair. "I'll prepare the Raven for transfer as soon as we conclude here."

"Than on to our next move." Marren said, leaning into the table. "Recent reports show that Erusea is developing a new prototype drone fighter..."

**...**

**So I know people will give me crap for starting ANOTHER story, but I love Ace Combat a lot, and I've been having a blast with Skies Unknown the past few months, and with the Raven having been recently released in game I got the idea for this story, a sort of combination of Skies Unknown and Electrosphere. Another small change is the death of Harling. In the game, it's revealed an Erusean drone disguised as an Osean fighter is what shot down Harling. In my story I'll keep it as Trigger killing Harling.**

**Reasoning is personal, I simply thought it worked better for you to be the one to shoot down Harling, even accidentally. As much as I love the way Ace Combat builds up the player as an unstoppable force that can never fail, the fact that the player did "fail" in such a crucial mission really drew me into the story of 7, so as an homage to the idea I'm going to make this change.**

**Anyways, next chapter we meet Spare Squadron! Fave, follow, review, and have a good night.**


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